U.S. Sen. Ayotte Tours Nashua YMCA

News Article

By Don Himsel

US Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., stopped at Nashua's YMCA Monday to discuss several child care and safety issues with staff.

"We invited Senator Ayotte here today to provide her with a little more education in terms of who we are as an organization, what we do in the community, how we impact lives, how we collaborate with so many different partners here," said the YMCA's Director Mike LaChance, adding that he wanted to discuss with her "some of the legislative priorities that we have as an organization."

Ayotte met with staff, toured the expansive facility and heard about current programs and future plans that focus on youth wellness.

LaChance said there were two initiatives at the top of his discussion list Monday. "One is child safety," he said. "As an organization who serves more than 10,000 children in our local community, we want to provide the safest environment for those kids coming through here."

The current YMCA building, located near Stellos Stadium, opened in May 2011. LaChance told Ayotte Monday that since then it has "quadrupled the number of people they are serving.

"The support we can get from the legislative side is access to a national database for criminal background checks," he continued, adding that the YMCA was also looking for "support for children in the after-school hours when they're most at risk," citing 21st century programing and child care block grant money.

Ayotte supported a bill last March updating the 1996 Child Care and Development Block Grant program (CCDBG). Grant money would be funneled to benefit programs serving qualifying low-income families that needed child care assistance.

It was signed into law in November 2014.

The extension of the 1996 law, Ayotte said, is "important for their childcare. It allows working families who can't afford child care support. The Y is a big recipient of that. Obviously, he uses it very well and effectively."

"Collectively, across the U.S., the YMCA is the largest provider of child care," LaChance told Ayotte Monday. "In the state of New Hampshire, if we're not the top, we're probably number two, as far as the number of kids served."

"Right now we're serving a little over 400 children on a daily basis," he said, "both in full-day and after school programming. Many of those families that come to us cannot afford child care on their own. Many of those cases it's a single mom or dad with a couple of kids working at a minimum wage job. It's extremely tough. We have to be able to work with them in some day to make it work. We're always looking for different opportunities in which we can further support those families."

Ayotte stopped into a child care room, visited with dancing youngsters and listened as the teacher read them books. She went to the building's workout area on the second floor and chatted with members who paused their workouts to talk.

While on the tour, LaChance and staff mentioned other YMCA programs and partnerships. One, called Livestrong, aims to support people fighting cancer or who are post-treatment with physical, social and nutritional assistance.

Ayotte also heard about the Y's unique community partnership with area pediatricians that is designed to help overweight youth.

"That program gives them physical activity a couple times a week. It gives them and their parents nutrition education, and during that 12-week period we also give them a free membership to the Y for the entire family," La-Chance said.

Enrolled children need to attend a certain number of classes.

About 150 kids a year and families are in the program. "This program is unique to us," he said. "But there are many other children that are not getting that service because of the resources."

Prevention efforts like this, said Ayotte, "Not only make people healthier but help reduce health costs and that makes a lot of sense to me."

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